BP Chats

The Omar Vizquel discussion on Effectively Wild got me thinking... If a team wants to sign a player to mentor young players, purely for his impact on team chemistry, why would they waste a roster spot on him instead of simply signing him as a bench coach but having him practice on the field with the players, hang out in the clubhouse, etc.?(oloughla from Boston, MA)

Well, a few reasons, I suppose. For one thing, maybe they have their eye on a particular player, but that player isn't quite ready to retire yet. For another, you probably want your bench coach to be someone experienced and well-versed in the ways of in-game management. You could make him a base coach, which would leave the more vital bench coach role free for someone else, but maybe players are more open to being mentored by a fellow player than a member of the coaching staff. Some advice that could be taken as constructive criticism if offered by another player could be regarded as lecturing if it's delivered by a coach. (Ben Lindbergh)

Do you see the way players are judged for entrance into the Hall of Fame evolving in the coming years and decades? Defense seems to just be getting to the point where we can judge a player's career. Will there be any cases that get pushed in due to statistical evidence supporting their exceptional defense?
(And no, I'm not just trying to find a way for Jose Molina to make it in the HOF.)(Steve from Milwaukee)

I think it's already changing; look at the way sabermetrics helped Bert Blyleven's climb. I don't think defensee alone is going to get anybody into Cooperstown unless they've got Ozzie Smith-level defensive numbers, which is tough luck for Omar Vizquel. (Jay Jaffe on the Hall of Fame)

As Omar Vizquel enters his 24th season, is he worthy of the HOF?(ParklandTrojan from Pennsylvania)

Nope. He's such a below-average hitter (.244 True Average) that it eats into his overall value considerably, and despite the Gold Gloves we have him at just ~11 FRAA for his career. He's not Ozzie Smith, Part Deux by any stretch of the imagination any more than Juan Pierre is Rickey Henderson, Part Deux. (Jay Jaffe)

Most of them, I think. Next year is Wakefield's last season though. Matt Stairs wants to come back for one more year, at least. Arthur Rhodes is a reliever, so he'll pitch until he can't. (Marc Normandin)

Hey Jay ..... thanks for the chat. Have you recovered from the "5-Napkin Burger" Friday night?
Who is the current leading candidate for the "Irrational Exuberance" HOF candidacy? In other words, who might be the next Jim Rice?(dianagramr from NYC)

Hey Diana! It took me awhile to recover from the 5-Napkin Burger, but maybe that was all the beer I drank trying to get through the Yanks' drawn out loss later that night.

Right now I'd have to say that it's Omar Vizquel's candidacy that leaves me cold. Keith Law wrote about it at length using JAWS numbers I supplied (http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog?name=law_keith&id=5410459). The short version is that Vizquel's defensive numbers don't measure up to the average Hall of Fame shortstop let alone those of Ozzie Smith, nor does his bat:

Are you saddened as I am that the inclusion of Ozzie Smith seems to have helped Omar Vizquel when it could or should have helped Larkin and Trammell?(Gregor from Bathurst)

Omar's not on the ballot, so we shouldn't worry about his candidacy for at least another six years. I don't think Ozzie's presence in the Hall has any bearing on Larkin and Trammell any more than the presences of Robin Yount and Cal Ripken do. There were a handful of great shortstops playing during the eighties, and some people apparently feel we've enshrined enough of them. (Jay Jaffe)

Should Elvis Andrus be given the starting job, or should the Rangers suffer through a year of Omar Vizquel?(birkem3 from Dayton, OH)

B. I think the Rangers are an excellent play for 2010, so wasting a year of Andrus' service time for a team that's not going to compete seems a little nuts and having him learn from Vizquel this spring and in a late-season callup has value that can't be measured on a spreadsheet. (Kevin Goldstein)

What do you think of the Orioles chances this year, with the addition of Uehara and Pie?(murber74 from Gaithersburg, MD)

I like both acquisitions. The Orioles need starting pitchers, because the cattle call behind Jeremy Guthrie doesn't engender very much confidence that this team can finish ahead of Norfolk, and because Uehara seems to be the cream of this year's Japanese import crop. As for Pie, I applaud the team's decision to acquire a player with legitimate upside instead of going the Jay Payton route -- the functional equivalent of taking the Barney-guarding job (http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F14.html) -- and think that he'll benefit with the change of scenery, though putting his bat in left may present problems as it raises the offensive bar a bit.

Memo to the dude who's now submitted the Omar Vizquel question for the fourth time -- I've got it, and you're not improving your chances by clogging the chat queue, you're hurting them. (Jay Jaffe)

It seems that in a few years, Omar Vizquel will join Rusty Staub and Harold Baines as the only guys with 11,000 PAs who are not in the HOF. My loose understanding of the argument against Omar is that while his counting and rate stats compare favorably with the Wiz, after adjusting for eras he comes out a little short offensively (84 OPS+ to 87), but the big difference is defense. Apparently the gulf between their defensive abilities was so great that Ozzie was a 90%+ slam dunk inner-circle type of election, and Omar isn't even a bubble guy. Two questions: Was Ozzie overvalued when he went in, and if not can you shine some light on the defensive differences? Thanks(ericturner29 from Chicago)

Ozzie Smith's defensive excellence is well-supported by the numbers, as systems such as WARP and Win Shares both love him. Vizquel is more of a mixed bag. The current iteration of WARP most definitely does NOT love him, but I suspect that the forthcoming play-by-play based system will correct that somewhat; his pbp-based UZR numbers eyeball as pretty decent.
Beyond that it's worth noting that Ozzie does have an advantage over Omar with the stick, via a .261 EQA to .254. IN terms of Batting Runs Above Average, the difference is about 100 runs. (Jay Jaffe)

Very quickly, Palmeiro does have the numbers (138.4 career, 68.9 peak, 103.7 JAWS) versus a standard of 138.4/68.9/103.7 for HOF 1Bs.

Sheffield is in trouble in that given his injuries, he's not likely to add much to his numbers (117.2/63.5/90.4) which are a bit short of the Hall standard for RFs (125.0/68.7/96.8).

Vizquel I get asked about rather frequently. I covered this last year (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=332), and since then the distance between him (79.3 overall) and the SS standard (96.6) has actually increased.

Posada has the peak (80.4/62.6/71.5 versus a standard of 98.9/60.8/79.9) and if he can stay healthy I think he's got a shot. But as this year has already shown, staying healthy will present a major challenge as he approaches 40. (Jay Jaffe)

Christina,
Reading the TA religiously (or so) I notice that the Giants have almost not been included at all this offseason, barring the Rowand signing. A quick bit of research tells me that inking Rowand is all they have done. Why haven't they done anything else? Lord knows they need changes.
Thanks for answering and keep up the great work!(rawagman from Work)

Many thanks, rawagman, and yes, the Giants have done a pretty good impression of Rip Van Winkle this winter, although they did get Omar Vizquel to stick around. The real question I have is what illicit substances must be in use to inform the suggestion that Kevin Frandsen could be their starting third baseman. It's really minor roster embroidery, but I'd rather they picked up somebody to help at the corners, so that at least they could play along as far as being a major league team. (Christina Kahrl)